And, at the end of the day, we are comfortable. It’s hard to admit. But while people who are transgender or queer or people of color face wildly unjust and dangerous systems, I can quietly write a blog post about it, sip my chai latte, and stroll out the door without a care in the world. I can proclaim myself to be an ally and petition my senators not to repeal the ACA — but Trump is still president and peopleareliterallydying, and all I have to offer is an oboe and a bleeding-heart blog post.

As the Facebook rants deluge and the helplessness mounts, there’s a question that’s been haunting me. We’re musicians, my Facebook friends and I. We’ve dedicated decades and degrees to a craft that is highly competitive and woefully underfunded — there must be a reason for it. What can we do — music performers, composers, educators, administrators — what can we do to make the many terrible things that are happening, slightly less terrible?

A beautifully written call to action by queer trans non-binary Filipinx-American artist Angela Dumlao asks cisgender people to consider how to engage privilege with genuine, impactful allyship. “You likely won’t get Trump to stop being terrible,” they write. “But you can look in the mirror and be better.”

One of the questions for reflection on Dumlao’s list: “Do you intake media by trans people? TV? Books? Articles? Art? Music?”

For those of us in classical music, the answer is, Probably not. Programming and visibility of trans composers is virtually nonexistent in major concert halls — unsurprising, in a world where an opera house can program literally one work by a woman in an entire century and be applauded as “making progress” — while trans soloists have been systematically silenced and oppressed. “In the United States, once I came out as Sara, I couldn’t get bookings with the top orchestras anymore, nor would any university employ me,” trans pianist Sara Davis Buechner wrote in an article for the New York Times.

The second article that got me in trouble was a review of Opera McGill‘s production of Alcinathis past Fall. The review, “Orientalism is no magic,” takes issue with the production’s use of yellowface — makeup, costumes, and set design appropriated from Asian cultures by white directors and designers, worn by white singers, and performed for the entertainment of a predominantly white audience.

Unlike the Don Giovanni interview, this article was 100% written by me, and I stand by it 100%. The review was a joint project meant to accompany “An open letter to Opera McGill” by Sarah Shin-Wong, a recording engineer who worked behind the scenes on the production, and whose perspective as a student of colour sheds vital light on why, exactly, the Alcina production was so infuriating:

Yellowface is when a non-Asian person wears makeup and/or costumes to look what they think is “Asian.” Thus, the entire 2016 principal cast of Alcina was performing yellowface.

It is offensive because essentially it is wearing ethnicities as a costume. It homogenizes, exotifies, and objectifies various Asian cultures and puts them under the umbrella of “Orientalism.” It dehumanizes Asian people and makes Asian cultures a superficial trend or aesthetic. In addition, it propagates inaccurate stereotypes and derogatory caricatures. It can be likened to blackface.

This is an open letter to anyone who has ever dismissed sexism in opera as an inherent product of the times. This is an open letter to anyone who’s ever stumbled upon criticism of racist practices in classical music, and done nothing but shrug, dismissing those criticisms as the ill-informed ramblings of a starry-eyed Social Justice Warrior.

This is an open letter to anyone who thinks that classical music shouldn’t be held to the same standards of critique, dialogue, and evolution as literally every other art form — who thinks that #OscarsSoWhite might apply in Hollywood, but certainly not in the concert hall.

This is an open letter to anyone who claims that calling Don Giovanni a rapist is a step too far. This is an open letter to anyone who thinks it doesn’t even matter what we call him, because in the end, it’s only an opera, and can’t we leave politics out of it?

No — no we can’t. Because opera is never only opera, and politics and art are inexorably linked. And if you happen to feel otherwise — well, this letter is for you. Continue reading →

Throughout my summer internship, senior staff from a variety of departments presented informative seminars to the interns. I took extensive notes during these seminars, and have been organizing them into unnecessarily elaborate visuals using the wicked fun infographic generator Canva, because let’s be real, I’d rather do that than make reeds. Here are some words of wisdom from the Executive Director of the WNO, as he describes how customer service is as important a part of the artistic experience as the art itself.